GeoffShackelford.com

When you realize that a golf club positions the player’s hands 40 inches, more or less, from a ball 1.68 inches in diameter that must be hit precisely after a swing that may take the clubhead on a round trip of as much as 26 or 27 feet, you become aware of the importance of using clubs conforming correctly to your requirements. TOMMY ARMOUR

Alexa Pano, 14, is tied for the lead at -8 heading into the Symetra Tour’s SKYiGOLFChampionship’sfinal round Sunday.

Pano is in the field for the upcomingAugusta National Women’s Amateur and has played one LPGA event when she was 11 and in other Symetra events. Still…a 14-year-old with a chance to win on the AAA circuit for Women’s golf?

For Immediate Release:

ALEXA PANO, 14, CHASING HISTORY AT SKYiGOLF Championship

NORTH PORT, Fla. (March 9, 2019) – Asked if she ever expected to be tied for the lead in a professional golf tournament with only 18 holes left to play, 14-year-old amateur Alexa Pano of Lake Worth, Fla., didn’t hesitate to answer.

“Yes, sir,” she politely told a reporter. “That’s why I played in the tournament.”

At the inaugural $250,000 SKYiGOLF Championship, Pano is on the brink of history, trying to become the youngest player ever to win a Symetra Tour event. Hannah O’Sullivan, who now plays college golf at Duke, was 16 years old when she won the 2015 Gateway Classic in Arizona.

The “youngest” thing is something that the uber-talented Pano has grown accustomed to hearing, though on Saturday at Charlotte Harbor National she said she hadn’t heard it in a while.

“It’s something I’m kind of used to it. Playing up in events a lot, I’d hear ‘youngest person ever’ so often,” she said. “It’s actually kind of gone away from me. Now that I’m 14, I’m kind of ‘old’ and can’t win the ‘youngest’ thing. But here we are again.”

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RIP His Ownself, Dan Jenkins. The best sportswriter ever. Not often do you get to hang out with your hero, but I did four times a year and consider myself one lucky SOB! Thanks for all the laughs and support over the years, press rooms and media hotel bars will never be the same.

Lefty! @djohnsonpga has a good move left or righthanded

90 years ago at Riviera’s first LA Open the press worked from the clubhouse patio using a telescope and binoculars. This week the @genesisopen media center was a massive operation in between holes 1 & 2 with WiFi, a barista, interview room, TV’s and ShotLink data at our fingertips. Thank you to the staff, volunteers @tgrliveevents @genesis_usa, Brenner-Zwikel team and @pgatour for another great week at Riviera during the 2019 Genesis Open won by J.B. Holmes.